it's not illegal for google and such to prop up biased news is it? i know it's shocking, but i'm not terrible versed in the world of internet regulation news. man, i don't want the government controlling the internet. that's pretty short sighted. what happens in 28 years when the republicans are no longer in power? trump was running a sun tzu esque campaign. but there has to be oversight of some sort. like some sort of committee that verifies the algorithms they use or something

It's not illegal, but as others have said, it also isn't happening. For example, if you went to google and search for Trump News before his tweet went everywhere, the very first result was an article from FoxNews. You have to remember that to Trump, anything negative is biased against him. He thinks it is biased news that the Cohen guilty plea got as much press as it did, even though it was a HUGE story. You can never take anything Trump says at his word, because words don't mean anything to him. He uses them how he wants whether it is true or not.

i mean, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say that it is happening. do they have to disclose anything? hasn't facebook even apologized for leaning left?

How does facebook lean left? It's filled with right wing crackpots sending you stupid memes. Granted, it's also filled with plenty of left wing crackpots as well. But that just makes it neutral.

The Russians were using bots to spew thousands of posts on Facebook and Twitter to influence the election. That's the ORIGINAL meaning behind "fake news." How would that have happened if Facebook were censoring right wing posts?

Having said that, I also don't care. If Facebook gets taken over by the alt-right or antifa, or Facebook tries to ban the alt-right or antifa, or if all the news on Facebook is put there by fake bots. People should just stop believing what the read from strangers on the internet.

it's not illegal for google and such to prop up biased news is it? i know it's shocking, but i'm not terrible versed in the world of internet regulation news. man, i don't want the government controlling the internet. that's pretty short sighted. what happens in 28 years when the republicans are no longer in power? trump was running a sun tzu esque campaign. but there has to be oversight of some sort. like some sort of committee that verifies the algorithms they use or something

It's not illegal, but as others have said, it also isn't happening. For example, if you went to google and search for Trump News before his tweet went everywhere, the very first result was an article from FoxNews. You have to remember that to Trump, anything negative is biased against him. He thinks it is biased news that the Cohen guilty plea got as much press as it did, even though it was a HUGE story. You can never take anything Trump says at his word, because words don't mean anything to him. He uses them how he wants whether it is true or not.

i mean, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say that it is happening. do they have to disclose anything? hasn't facebook even apologized for leaning left?

If you are claiming major things with zero evidence, you are exactly a conspiracy theorist. All the evidence presented shows Trump is full of shit. He has offered zero evidence the right is being censored. And yet if I go to google right now and type in Trump, of the first 3 articles is one from FoxNews. That alone pretty much disproves his claim (unless you are really crazy and think FoxNews isn't conservative). Believing things with no evidence supporting it while ignoring the evidence against it is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy theorist.

It would not surprise me if google or Facebook aggregated news were left-leaning. I mean, Trump is a pretty unpopular President and probably even more unpopular among internet savvy media consuming gen Z’s.

So you have people like my coworker who I think probably googles “Trump sucks” all day and of course Facebook and Gooogke are tracking their hits to determine what is got.

No doubt there is some 8chan techbro neck beard incel with a bit trying to mess with the algorithms pro-Trump as well.

All that data Zuckerberg is collecting is only valuable to the extent they can push ads that reflect user preference. If their data is skewed because they are directing users they lose crap tons of money. Same with google, really. If you google “I heart Trump” and you get two pages of anti-Trump ads, then you stop using google.

There’s every disincentive for both companies NOT to mess around. And I mean, to the extent we know Zucjerberg’s philosophy above money, it seems to be that everyone should always be airing their private thoughts and the world would be a better place if everyone knew everything about everyone. The more stuff in the web the better. He only protects privacy or boots people off Facebook or whatever under government/shareholder pressure.

According to a study conducted by Western Journalism, the findings were unequivocal: the left of center sites saw a nearly 14 percent increase in traffic, while the most popular conservative sites witnessed a 27 percent decrease.”

The Western Journalism report continued:

This algorithm change, intentional or not, has in effect censored conservative viewpoints on the largest social media platform in the world. This change has ramifications that, in the short-term, are causing conservative publishers to downsize or fold up completely, and in the long-term could swing elections in the United States and around the world toward liberal politicians and policies.

it's not illegal for google and such to prop up biased news is it? i know it's shocking, but i'm not terrible versed in the world of internet regulation news. man, i don't want the government controlling the internet. that's pretty short sighted. what happens in 28 years when the republicans are no longer in power? trump was running a sun tzu esque campaign. but there has to be oversight of some sort. like some sort of committee that verifies the algorithms they use or something

It's not illegal, but as others have said, it also isn't happening. For example, if you went to google and search for Trump News before his tweet went everywhere, the very first result was an article from FoxNews. You have to remember that to Trump, anything negative is biased against him. He thinks it is biased news that the Cohen guilty plea got as much press as it did, even though it was a HUGE story. You can never take anything Trump says at his word, because words don't mean anything to him. He uses them how he wants whether it is true or not.

i mean, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to say that it is happening. do they have to disclose anything? hasn't facebook even apologized for leaning left?

If you are claiming major things with zero evidence, you are exactly a conspiracy theorist. All the evidence presented shows Trump is full of shit. He has offered zero evidence the right is being censored. And yet if I go to google right now and type in Trump, of the first 3 articles is one from FoxNews. That alone pretty much disproves his claim (unless you are really crazy and think FoxNews isn't conservative). Believing things with no evidence supporting it while ignoring the evidence against it is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy theorist.

now, i know how an algorithm operates, but how they make one, i haven't the foggiest, but isn't that the only real evidence? late candidate for word of the year?

According to a study conducted by Western Journalism, the findings were unequivocal: the left of center sites saw a nearly 14 percent increase in traffic, while the most popular conservative sites witnessed a 27 percent decrease.”

The Western Journalism report continued:

This algorithm change, intentional or not, has in effect censored conservative viewpoints on the largest social media platform in the world. This change has ramifications that, in the short-term, are causing conservative publishers to downsize or fold up completely, and in the long-term could swing elections in the United States and around the world toward liberal politicians and policies.

Obama’s app was just a run-of-the-mill spammy app. It was clearly labeled as an Obamac political app for people who wanted Obama news. There was an opt in as well where like, “Hey, do you if mind I mine contacts list and send them spammy shit”. And people clicked yes. The data was never sold or shared with third parties.

Cambridge Analytica masqueraded as some sort of personality quiz app. You would have no idea that your data was being used as political research.

Do I think it would have mattered? No. Because people will click yes to anything they see on the internet.

Is there is huge difference between what Obama and Cambridge Analytica did? Yes. Because one app told you what it’s purpose was and asked your permission to allow it to do its purpose and one app was just a Trojan horse that intentionally purported to be one thing but was in fact something entirely different.

This has all been gone over and the claim debunked. Do you know why you don’t know this? Because you are reading bullshit sites like lifesite news and Western Journal. There’s a reason those sites are “underground.” They’re phony and the stuff they print is false. They exist because of the section of the population such as yourself who are stupid and lazy and never read anything beyond the small echo chamber of similarly fake sites.

says the political side that controls the white house, senate, house, supreme court, are currently stacking the federal courts with conservative judges, have 33 governors, and both chambers in 33 (damn, 33!!!; plus nebraska which only has one chamber) states. clearly, todays extreme conservative message is being suppressed, and people certainly aren't voting for it. /s.

According to a study conducted by Western Journalism, the findings were unequivocal: the left of center sites saw a nearly 14 percent increase in traffic, while the most popular conservative sites witnessed a 27 percent decrease.”

The Western Journalism report continued:

This algorithm change, intentional or not, has in effect censored conservative viewpoints on the largest social media platform in the world. This change has ramifications that, in the short-term, are causing conservative publishers to downsize or fold up completely, and in the long-term could swing elections in the United States and around the world toward liberal politicians and policies.

Well first, even in your article, Facebook didn't admit to censoring conservative viewpoints. And the fact that is the article you decided to listen to says a lot. It is one extremely biased conservative site quoting another extremely biased conservative site. Part of the problem is that there are more conservative sites that are pure garbage. Places like Breitbart, The Blaze, and the Daily Mail are pretty much pure garbage. But then they compare those sites with sites like HuffPost that is biased, but also fairly truthful. They also picked some extremely questionable sites like the Cincinnati Enquirer and The Des Moine Register that are far from mainstream for anyone who doesn't live in the area, bringing their methodology into question. The entire thing stinks of starting with the conclusion and working backward to prove it.

HuffPo is pretty much garbage. You know Breitbart was one of the cofounders?

Drudge, Huffington Post, and Breitbart all served the same initial function as news aggregators. They just collected up the most left wing or right wing stuff from other sites and add summarized it with snarky commentary.

Breitbart (the person) started going odd the deep end and then he died and Breitbart really lost it. But it’s still the same formula, more or less. They just started pulling more from crazier sources. And then Bannon joined Trump. Then they threw or Bannon and declared their Trump allegiance and now they are just a propaganda arm. Like literally, they are fed stories and feed stories to the administration.

Which makes HuffPo slightly more legit in that at least they are still pulling from relatively mainstream sources and not part of the swampy propaganda arm of the President. But that’s more happenstance than good journalism. The mainstream sources are on their side. Trump really is an atrocity of a President. Obviously, Trump is not feeding them stories. But HuffPo would be Breitbart if the situations were reversed. And it still sucks and no one should be getting their news from them.

According to a study conducted by Western Journalism, the findings were unequivocal: the left of center sites saw a nearly 14 percent increase in traffic, while the most popular conservative sites witnessed a 27 percent decrease.”

The Western Journalism report continued:

This algorithm change, intentional or not, has in effect censored conservative viewpoints on the largest social media platform in the world. This change has ramifications that, in the short-term, are causing conservative publishers to downsize or fold up completely, and in the long-term could swing elections in the United States and around the world toward liberal politicians and policies.

Well first, even in your article, Facebook didn't admit to censoring conservative viewpoints. And the fact that is the article you decided to listen to says a lot. It is one extremely biased conservative site quoting another extremely biased conservative site. Part of the problem is that there are more conservative sites that are pure garbage. Places like Breitbart, The Blaze, and the Daily Mail are pretty much pure garbage. But then they compare those sites with sites like HuffPost that is biased, but also fairly truthful. They also picked some extremely questionable sites like the Cincinnati Enquirer and The Des Moine Register that are far from mainstream for anyone who doesn't live in the area, bringing their methodology into question. The entire thing stinks of starting with the conclusion and working backward to prove it.

i was searching for a zuckerberg quote or the effect of a quote in which he said so. i've never heard of this site before and i immediately felt it was suspect but it was either that or like a 30 page wired article. obviously there were many to choose from but they all seemed kinda the same. the article was about some former facebook employees from a few years ago

That might actually be a crippling blow. The things that can hurt Trump are not ones which blast him for his policies, because the right has made it pretty clear they like his policies. It's the ones where someone says "I'm on board with the right completely, but Trump is screwing it up for US."

Even if you believe that this anonymous person is completely lying about Trump, it's still a problem that his administration is dysfunctional enough that this can happen.

What does that leave? That NYT is just completely making it up? It's possible, but I tend to doubt it. When you not only write an op-ed but are willing to answer reader questions, you're seriously whistleblowing. They're going to find out who this person is, and I think that person knows that and is fine with it and will step forward once they're out there. They just want cover to stay within the administration as long as possible and also so they can say they never truly turned on Trump, they were actually trying to help him, their cover was just blown.

Also, Trump has gone to the well more than a few times too often. Yes, it's great when you insult liberals. But at some point when all you have is silly nicknames and "fake news" all day every day, some people are going to be like "Yeah, the media prints fake news and all Democrats are evil communists. We know that. Where's the wall?"

It all looks very implosive and death spiral-y at this point. If Trump were Clinton maybe, he could figure a way out of this. But Trump is Trump. I suspect he will handle this poorly. Maybe get baited into firing Sessions or something else stupid. That will cost him the House. Without the House he's looking at impeachment and he's not getting much passed. Which will just make him act even crazier.

Nah. The problem with the idea that Trump distracts people with all his stuff is that he hasn’t actually managed to distract anyone.

His supporters for the most part following events, just from FOX news or social media. They’re following the news, just a very warped version of it. Those who hate him are keenly and overly aware of everything as well, and mostly also a warped way.

The portion of people who don’t follow politics don’t need to be distracted because they weren’t paying any attention and they won’t pay any attention to the distraction either.

If everyone were distracted, they’d be neutral on Trump. Instead he generates the strongest feelings for and against (mostly against if the polls are correct).

If this is legit, I have a real problem with this. The language of it sounds like "hey, we know he's a nut job, but we like the legislation we're getting pushed through and we don't want to lose power, which we surely would if we invoke the 25th, so trust us we'll manage the idiot".

This is terrifying. They are either running a shadow government or staging a silent coup. Either way, they are all still complicit never mind the CYA of this. Anyone who doesn't resign is just as guilty. And how does this play on the world stage? I'm sure Putin is chuckling.